Jury: Runge should die

Murderer accused in 5 other slayings

A Cook County jury needed a little more than an hour Monday to recommend that Paul Runge should be sent to Death Row for the 1997 rape and murder of a mother and her 10-year-old daughter, siding with prosecutors who described the serial-killer suspect and his crimes as "shockingly evil."

The decision came after a sentencing hearing that lasted two weeks, with prosecutors detailing each of the five other sexual assaults and murders of women Runge, 36, is charged with in Cook and DuPage Counties.

Runge was found guilty earlier this month of repeatedly raping and cutting the throats of Yolanda Gutierrez, 35, and her daughter, Jessica Muniz.

He allegedly talked his way into their apartment in the 3100 block of North Laramie Avenue. After sexually assaulting both victims and cutting their throats, he burned their bodies.

"I'm not a hateful person," said Gutierrez's father, Ramon Rivera, who attended every day of the trial. "But I can only say about this man that I hope he burns in hell."

Runge stared at the defense table as the jury forewoman read from a sheet of paper: "Death is the appropriate sentence." Gutierrez's family wiped their eyes and embraced in the hushed courtroom.

Cook County State's Atty. Richard Devine called the slayings "vicious and brutal," saying he hoped the case might force a decision on where Illinois stands on capital punishment and perhaps spur movement on whether the moratorium in place since 2000 should end.

"If ever there were an appropriate candidate for the death penalty, it's Paul Runge," Devine said.

Runge as the "face of the death penalty" was a theme repeated in the arguments of prosecutors Monday.

Assistant State's Atty. Bernie Murray called Runge cunning and manipulative, and had urged the jury to reject the defense's contention that he should be spared because of mental illness. Runge's defense had argued his sexual sadism should rise to the level of legal insanity.

Murray called it a "mental illness of convenience." Runge chose to cross society's lines as a means to scare and humiliate his victims, Murray told jurors as he showed them photos of each woman Runge is charged with killing.

Runge shouldn't be sent to prison where he could get a job, lift weights, go to the commissary, go to the library, watch television and accept visitors, Murray said.

"Is that an appropriate way for him to serve out his days?" Murray said.

Prosecutors had told jurors to reject the defense position that Runge should be sent to prison to reflect on his crimes.

"[Runge] will get more pleasure from his reflections on the last moments of their lives," Murray said of the defendant and his victims. "Don't allow him to relive the pleasure of his crimes. He wants to be sent to his room with food, with dinner, with lunch, with breakfast."

Runge's defense Monday had urged the jury to "allow the decision on when Paul Runge dies in prison to rest with God." Assistant Public Defender Amy Thompson told each juror they could be merciful as an individual and that it was not a requirement of the law that Runge be sentence to die.

"It may even be possible with God's grace that Paul Runge will understand what he became and what damage he did," Thompson said. "But that can only happen in God's time."

Runge suffers from a mental illness that leaves him with no control over impulses and little memory of his crimes, she said. He began to slip just after his mother died when he was 17, defense lawyers said.

Jurors leaving the Criminal Courts Building on Monday said the evidence was overwhelming.

Woody Jordan, Runge's chief defense lawyer, vowed to appeal the conviction and sentence. Jordan said one factor they plan to cite in an appeal is prosecutors' detailing of the other cases for which Runge is still awaiting trial.

Those cases are:

The January 1995 slaying of Stacey Frobel, 25, a friend of his former wife's. Frobel's remains were found in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

The rape and murders in July 1995 two Hanover Park sisters, Dzeneta, 22, and Ameal Pasanbegovic, 20. Runge is awaiting trial in DuPage County.

The January 1997 rape and strangulation of Dorota Dziubak, 30, on the Northwest Side. Runge had responded to an ad for a house for sale, authorities said.

The murder of Kazimiera Paruch, 43, of Chicago, in March of that year.

Runge became the fifth person sentenced to death in Cook County since former Gov. George Ryan emptied Death Row in 2003. Judge Joseph Kazmierski Jr. should make the sentence official as soon as March 28.

"I hope the Lord will give me enough time, so I can see him strapped to the gurney," said Rivera. "Once he's gone I will be very satisfied."